Happy full moon friends, the garden grows wild and the goats break through their fence every day and I bask in it all, picking strawberries and tomatoes. Fall and even the thought of Winter have just barely started whispering to me, tapping me on the shoulder. I say hello and yes, see you soon, but I am here right now, still making plans for more swimming. I sit quietly in the evening garden and watch for the hummingbirds.
Lately I’ve been musing on the idea of performance. As in, what selves am I performing in the world? Where and how do I perform the self and which selves am I showing up with? And are those selves an accurate expression of my transformations, desires, ways of existence? How can I trust that I will be seen, and known? How can I be patient and know that all of me will be revealed eventually?
Anna and I were chewing on this idea together, and we came around to the question, am I doing this for performance, or for existence? And I noticed that there’s overlap for me. Gardening, for example, is a way that I exist in the world, and by exist I mean it’s a way that I’m in relationship with everything, and gardening is something I also perform. Gardening feels like part of my essential self. And in expressing this essential self to others, I perform this self.
I don’t know that it’s possible to extract ourselves from performance entirely, or even necessary to do so, but I am thinking a lot about rooting deeper into existence. If we can’t not perform, how do we perform the true self? How do we perform the truths of our existence?
Let me be like the cicada, fully singing my song after abandoning my outgrown shell, again and again.
“Under this mask, another mask. I will never finish removing all these faces.”
-Claude Cahun
Bear with me, here, as I dive further into my realm of imagination. I’m not sure I’ll be very clear in describing my essence process yet, but it’s part of my classwork, so I have to start trying. I made an essence of a summer storm a few days ago. I feel it still ringing through me even now. It had been on my mind for maybe a year, so to finally have had the timing align for the making felt so incredible.
I set the bowl out when I first heard thunder, and had it out for the full arc of the storm: anticipation, crescendo, quiet pausing. Before During After. I love how everything feels in the moments after the most of the storm has rolled through. When it still sounds like it’s raining because the water is falling off the trees, and the birds and the insects are still quiet. When the air is humming with clarity. It feels like the deepest exhale to me. Everything feels so spacious, calm, refreshed, cleared out. I wanted an essence of this feeling. And I noticed that I wanted to include the journey to that feeling too. To feel the full song. I’m so happy with it. Here is an excerpt from my notes:
SUMMER STORM ESSENCE
essence of wind, of thunder, of rain, of lightning, of clouds, of changing, of renewal, of revelation, of awe, of being swept away, of being cleared out, of exhaling, of moon rising in sagittarius, of connecting with the beloved, of beginning again
I feel like I’m on that part of the bell curve where after thinking you know what’s going on, you realize all you have are more questions. Here’s to hoping this email ramble makes some sense among all the questions.
Thanks for reading, wishing you full moon blessings. XOXO
“Let me be like the cicada, fully singing my song after abandoning my outgrown shell, again and again.” Yes. Yes. Yes. I have also been thinking of that “am I performing or existing?” Line a lot as well. Also, that storm essence sounds magical and oh so lovely. What potent summer medicine 🤍